


selling it.

by ghost_storm



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Established Relationship, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Humanstuck, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I might delete this, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Movie Night, Mutual Pining, No Angst, No Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Second Person, Pesterlog(s) (Homestuck), it started out as a coffee shop au and i got carried away, literally just the 4 of them being idiots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-11
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28684350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghost_storm/pseuds/ghost_storm
Summary: it just so happens that a new coffee shop opened up on campus. It’s only been open for a while and your best friend, Kanaya Maryam, has given it good reviews. She’s usually never wrong so this should be fine. Right?---my first fanfic!
Relationships: Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	selling it.

**Author's Note:**

> Any tips/comments are appreciated, I don't know what I'm doing.
> 
> \- this started out as a coffee shop fic but it totally goes off the rails.  
> \- I'll update when I can, I already have the first 5 chapters written so...  
> \- once again I know nothing about writing fanfic, sorry if this is shit.

Your name is Karkat Vantas. You are in college and survive off of coffee only, and it just so happens that a new coffee shop opened up on campus. It’s only been open for a while and your best friend, Kanaya Maryam, has given it good reviews. She’s usually never wrong so this should be fine. Right?

You walk into the coffee shop and it is relatively empty, which is great for you because it means the fewer people you could run into. It’s quite small, only a few tables. The color scheme inside is weirdly warm? There’s only reds and oranges in here and it’s quite off-putting with the cool tones of the outside building. You notice someone working at the counter and go up.

“Welcome to Music Blends, what can I get for you?” says a short woman - though she is taller than you still, she wears what you assume to be their uniform while also sporting a purple headband that doesn’t match the red outfit at all, god, Kanaya would start commenting on that in a HEARTBEAT. She always seemed to be great when it came to planning outfits, she even helped you with fancy events at times. She aspires to be a fashion designer, and you whole-heartedly believe that she can do it with her experience. She’s been sewing from a young age so you don’t doubt her abilities when it comes to actually creating her clothing pieces. You were even forced to help her with trying on her designs a few times, but that’s for another time. You continue to look at the woman at the counter while - wait, continue? - you realize that you’ve been staring at her for way too long to be considered appropriate by any means. Fuck, better say something.

“Oh uhm - I’ll just get a black coffee.” you respond as quickly as possible. She looks at you with a concentrated face before quickly writing down your order.

“Anything else?” She says with a relatively annoyed voice, which makes sense, it is only 6 in the morning.

“No thanks, just a coffee, and I’ll be on my way, y'know, with class and shit?” You speak. She quirks an eyebrow at you and quickly goes in the back to make your order. What was that about? Can’t a guy just get a black coffee without it being considered “weird”? He just wants to get caffeine in his system before your mind fucking explodes.

...

It’s been 15 minutes. What is taking so long back there? You can hear her and someone else chatting, it feels like forever. You swear- if it takes any longer you are just going to leave, this “service” is fucking stupid. At this point it’s just ridiculous, you sigh and turn and leave when suddenly you hear someone new speak.

“Black coffee for some short dude?” 

Turning around you are met with a man this time. Oh for god's sake- is he wearing sunglasses indoors? What kind of fucking douchebag to be to wear shades indoors? The sun is barely even up goddamnit. He just HAS to be an insufferable prick by mentioning your height too, doesn’t he? This place is so fucking dumb, you should’ve just went to your normal cafe, but NOOOO you had to come here because it was closer. Nice going genius. You think he’s staring at you, honestly, it’s hard to tell.

“That’s mine, I guess.” you grumble before taking it out of his hands. Your hands brush against each other- oh fuck how cliche does this have to be? Next, is he going to wink at you? Wait you wouldn’t be able to tell even if he did. Forget that idea. What is he going to do next, slip you his fucking number?

“So uhm, where you going this early in the morning?” he asked. Is he seriously trying to make small talk with you after just insulting you at 6 IN THE GODDAMNED MORNING? 

“Where do you think, asshole?” You say, in a slightly louder tone than you wanted - fuck - you really hope that the other customers didn’t pay attention to that.

“Jeez dude, just trying to be nice. You didn’t have to get all feisty like that. I’m assuming you aren’t a morning person? Like at all?”

“Yeah no shit, it’d be great if I could just pay and be on my way.”

“Oh no, on the house.”

“..What? Why?” Why the fuck is he giving this to you for free? I mean, you can’t complain, you’re a broke fucking college student and since the amount of money you spend on coffee is already EXTREMELY high, you really can’t complain about free coffee, like ever. It’s just confusing, is this one of those “congratu-fucking-lations!! You are the 50th person to come to this shitty coffee shop, so we want to be nice!” That’d be nice, but of course, that’s not the answer you hear.

“Hey- you’re cute, what can I say? I already talked to Rose and she said that she doesn’t give a rat’s ass if only one person didn’t pay. Well I mean- she didn’t say rat’s ass, she isn’t like that. More analytic and uses these big fucking words that I don’t know just to piss me off. She’s pretty nice once ya get to know her though.” He says that first part fast - not the rat’s ass or whatever, the part before that - you almost didn’t hear it… but you did, and something about this insufferable asshole wearing shades indoors calling you cute at 6 AM makes you blush. Must be the lack of sleep not being able to recognize the fact that you DISLIKE this man? Yeah, that’s it. 

You huff and go to walk out the door, you really can’t take this shit, and you have a class that starts in 20 minutes.

“Really dude? Not even a goodbye or something? Whatever.” He sounded kind of… disappointed? No that can’t be it, you’re literally just a random dude who happened to walk into his workplace, he probably flirts with everyone.

As you are taking a sip of your coffee you notice something on the lid. It’s a… post-it note? Why the fuck is there a post-it note on your coffee? You lift it up and- of fucking course.

“000-000-0000 text me you seem cool <3” 

Well, ignoring his obvious lack of punctuation after the word me, let's take this at face value.

Some random dude at the new coffee shop on your campus you’ve never met, and really don’t want to speak to again, just went and called you CUTE, gave you his NUMBER, and left a HEART on his note. He is sending more signals than you have ever imagined and honestly? 10/10 for the bravery, he doesn’t know your sexuality and just did that on a whim. To be completely fucking frank, you kind of just want to talk to him because of that, the bravery that you have never had. You pocket the note and go to your class.

\---

Your name is Dave Strider and you are a fucking idiot. Not in the way that you don’t know anything, because, in your humble opinion, you know a lot. No, you are talking about how you just tried to hit on the cute guy who came into the coffee shop, and he just left, without saying anything. Holy shit.

I mean you just have to hope he sees the post-it note on the cup right? Of course he’ll see the post-it note. Oh my god, what if he doesn’t like men? I mean Rose said that Kanaya said that it was a pretty high chance but she might’ve just been fucking with you? There’s no way he’ll text you back he seemed so angry at you when you first talked to him. This was so stupid, you’re first time ever trying to ask someone out and you fucked it up THIS BADLY?

You’re pacing the floor, you only have about 2 hours of your shift left and Rose has three. Maybe, MAYBE, you can get Rose to ask Kanaya for that guy’s number? Are they even friends or do they just have classes together, because if she only knows him for school I doubt that she’d be comfortable sharing his information… AND you’re not even that close with Kanaya so why would she give it to-

“Haven’t you over-thought this situation enough dear cousin? I mean, it has only been 20 minutes and he seemed in quite a hurry when ordering, perhaps he was late to class? Give it a while, he might text you later.” Rose says, trying to calm you down.

“No you don’t UNDERSTAND Rose, I can’t mess that shit up! He’ll probably never come back to this cafe and GOD FORBID he sees me again I might melt!” You quickly say, your panic increasing rapidly.

“Do you even know his name? You seriously are so tragic.” 

“Why the fuck would I- Rose, I met him today, and thought “oh shit he’s hot” why the fuck would I know his name, HE LEFT.” A dramatic sigh comes out of you, okay, maybe you shouldn’t get your hopes up, but… “Do YOU know his name smartass?”

“I told you, I’ve seen Kanaya speak with him a multitude of times - granted I’m pretty sure a majority of the time he was yelling about something - of course I know his name.” She smiles slightly, you doubt that what she says is true, but you are willing to try nonetheless.

“Wait for reals? Well why didn’t you tell me? What is it??”

“Well one, yes for “reals”, two, I didn’t tell you because it’s quite entertaining to see you run around like a chicken with its head cut off over a nameless man, and three..” she makes a dramatic pause, “his name is Karkat.” 

You stop pacing and start to think, as much as you were already fawning for this guy you really didn’t think you would find out, well, ANYTHING, about him. Karkat. That’s a pretty odd name but you guess you’ve never heard of someone with the name of Kanaya until 1 year ago either. The name suits him however, really, it would lower his attractive-ness by like, 18 points if his name was Richard or some shit like that.

You stare back at your phone, waiting for a text from Karkat, it’s only been two minutes since you last looked so you doubt that he has messaged you. You’re right, you always want to be the right one but for this? Yeah, not the best time to be right.

“I’ll ask Kanaya about him more if it will put your mind at ease. Go back to serving the customers, I’ll call her and tell you later.” Rose snaps you out of your sad entrancement of just looking at your phone waiting for a notification.

“You’ll do that? Holy shit - well goodbye, I’ve got some customers to take care of.” You say with a smirk before going back to the register, luckily there's only one person there, this should be easy.

....

An hour passes, you’ve kinda just been staring at the door waiting for Karkat to come back, it’s doubtful as shit but you can’t help but hope. Suddenly Rose comes out from the back, what the fuck took her so long?

“So I finished talking with Kanaya-”

“For an entire hour? I’ve been waiting my ass off for the past hour for my dear beloved cousin to come out of the back room so that she can tell me more about what the man of my fucking dreams and she was just chatting. Like I fucking get you and Kanaya are like REALLY close, but c’mon, an HOUR?”

“Let me finish, she only answered me about 20 minutes ago because she had only just woken up. She told me that she didn’t know how she felt about talking about her other friend’s weaknesses and such to other people, however she did tell me he was quite hot-headed towards people he didn’t know well and that it would take a while to really “open him up” and that was about the best I got, so good luck with him.” She explains. 

Well fuck, this might be harder than you expected, if he isn’t a people person he definitely won’t text you first.


End file.
